Britain’s Most Incredible Submarine - HMS M1

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HMSM1 was one of the most incredible submarines ever built. Deep in the
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depths of the First World War, somebody in the Royal Navy decided what they really needed was a submarine armed with
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the biggest gun they could possibly fit on it. In this case, what they had was a
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a 12in gun that had come off a pre- dreadnaugh battleship. It weighed 50
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tons. It was 12 m long. It was unbelievable thing. and and to get one
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fitted on a submarine, you know, absolutely incredible. Frankly, if it wasn't actually real, nobody would have
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ever have thought such a thing could exist. But the Royal Navy did it. They built well, they nearly built four of
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these things, but M1 was the first. It was constructed during the First World War. It was finished. It was ready for
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use. It was so revolutionary, such a kind of idea that was so out there that
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the Royal Navy were really concerned that the Germans were going to copy it. So because of that they kept it secret.
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They never actually used M1 in anger during the first world war. So it survived the war and was in existence
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for another seven years after after the war until in 1925 when it was on
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maneuvers it um vanished without trace. Now, the mystery of what happened to it
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has has never been 100% solved, but the general view is that a um a merchant
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ship, a Swedish merchant ship called the Var um reported striking something submerged round about the time that the
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M1 went missing. And when the Var got into port and they checked the bow, they
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found um special paint on it, which was the same as the the paint that had come off the M1. So it was generally assumed
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that the uh M1 was operating close to the surface. The VAR hit it, sank it,
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and as often happened with submarine incidents in those times, the entire crew were very sadly lost. Fast forward
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to 1967 when a salvage company found what they described as a large submarine
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with significant damage on the starboard side. Uh nothing else happened to it until 1999 when it was dived by uh fame
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submarine explorer Inis McCartney and his team and they identified it as the M1 based upon at the location, the
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length, some of the features such as the gun mount, such as the gun mounting and the fact it was clearly a World War I
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era submarine. This is where it is. Uh you can see sort of 20 odd miles southsoutheast of Plymouth in about 74 m
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of water. We're also lucky enough to have some really good multi-beam imagery of it. And you can see there lies on a
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you know flat sandy seabed uh very very submarine shape, very pointy and you can
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see there the conning tower and then just in front of the conning tower what is clearly uh you know a large bit of
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submarine on the uh on the seabed. And uh a bit more of that when we uh when I show you the dive. The M1's been on my
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list of things to do for for ages, but I've never really fancied it. I've always fancied other other things more,
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but on this particular day, the uh we were meant to be diving HMS Victory again. Unfortunately, the conditions
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weren't up to going nearly 50 mi offshore. So, we we kind of we only went 20 odd miles offshore. As you can see
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here, we're uh we've got some pretty significant uh waves on the site. It's
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an easterly, which is kind of the worst weather for Plymouth, but we uh you know, we we felt it was workable, so
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decided to give it a go. It's always a bit more challenging when conditions are like this. But fortunately, the team morale was in a good place. The only
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thing you've got to be careful of on conditions like this is just when you're moving around the deck clearly with all
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that gear on, falling over would be a really bad thing. So, it's really good having the kind of ropes that are
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overhead there just gives you something to kind of hold on to. I've got my selfie stick, though, so you know, maybe
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not ideal conditions for that, but I'm all about getting you guys the footage. I know that people love to see different
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elements of the the dive. So, I hope that the uh the selfie stick gives you
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gives you a bit of a feel for what it's like and what it was like on this dive is lumpy and bumpy and kind of gray and
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overcast, but quite exciting because this is another wreck that I've never dived before and it's got fabulous
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history. And the bit that I've not mentioned so far is that this uh year 2025 is the 100th anniversary of the uh
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the sinking of the M1. So, you know, it's important to kind of recognize these milestones. I think it's also
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important to recognize that what's going on here is a whole load of faf. I've managed to catch the selfie stick and
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bits of my gear, including the video cameras and my cylinders in some of the ropes that are on the surface. And you
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can see there that I've uh I've had to fight to free them. Um the the blue string that you can see there wrapped
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around the selfie stick, that's the waster that I'm going to be using to tie us into the shot line. You can probably
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just see behind Rick there is is camera. In fact, I I've also got another problem going on here, which I don't know if you
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saw my uh cylinder there, my uh my my right hand cylinder was uh was leaking.
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I every time I try and turn it on there, you can see that bubbles are coming out of it. So, what I've done is I've
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shouted to Rick there, and I've just explained to him that my my right hand bailout cylinder, you can see there, me
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pointing at it, and you can see that he's uh I've explained that it's leaking. So, what I need him to do is to come up and just kind of tighten it up a
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little bit, which he's he's going to do there, and then we're going to turn it on, and it's all going to be okay. So,
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there we go. Another another nice thing about having a buddy. Uh I can't remember. Normally, I go in with my
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cylinders turned on. I can't remember why I turned that one off. I think maybe it was the the reggg was uh was was
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catching on my knee or something like that. So, it was purging. So, I turned it off with the view that I'd get into the water. Once I was in the water, I
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would I would turn it on again and it'd be okay. Obviously, when I went to turn it on, as you saw there, it just started
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started leaking. So, I needed it's a lot easier to get somebody else to tighten it up as as I did there. Now, I'm going
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to speed up the descent cuz frankly, there's not very much interesting happens in it. But one of the thing I'm
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going to do first of all is just kind of flag up that that uh GoPro that I've got in my left hand there, that is the uh
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the housing that I bought off AliExpress for like um you know $40 or $45 or whatever it was, it's 80 m rated. I'm
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taking it on a 74 m dive. Um I'm going to report it works really really well
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and it survived and it actually survived another one the uh couple of days later to 85 mters as well. So so far so good.
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As we get close to the bottom, you can see it's absolutely pitch black down here. The uh that's the thing that you
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get with those kind of gray clouds. There's no light penetration down here. So, the only light you've currently got is uh is me sorting my strobes out. You
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can see there still going with my uh with my selfie stick, though. Don't know. I managed to delete this
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particular bit of footage, which was uh which is really irritating. So, although the uh the housing worked, just didn't
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get the footage. You can see Rick in front of me there. He's putting his strobes on as well. The good news is any moment now I'm going to put on some uh
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video lights and we're going to be able to see what's happening. And hallelujah. There we go. Let there be light. And as
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you can see, we're clearly on the top of some sort of man-made structure. That's metal. And there's actually quite a lot
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of brass or bronze around there. There's some sort of gauge I've just seen below me there. The blue rope that you can see
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up there, that is the that's the the shot line. And my job now is to tie the waist. And you can see
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there I've got that blue string. I'm going to find somewhere on the wreck where I can tie the shot line in so it
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doesn't move if the tide picks up or other divers start pulling it or whatever. I mean, the other thing, you
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can't really see it at the moment, but there is a load of uh fishing line down here, a load of net as well. And this
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wreck is is super well fished because of where it is, you know, relatively close to port, relatively close to some some
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pretty big fishing ports. So, it's uh not really surprised that it's it's covered in fishing there. And as you see
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as I go around it, there's some really big fish on it as well. So there you go. You can see me tying in the waster.
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And when the uh the boat comes to lift the shot line, they'll be able to pull
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with enough force so that waster will break and they'll be able to recover the shot line up to the surface. So that is
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my part of the uh the job done. Apart from, as you can see there, part of my light system is caught on a bit of video
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net. Rick's role in this is to release the pill. The pill is a solid buoyant
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fishing float really that will float up to the surface and it will tell everybody else on the boat that the shot
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is on the wreck and they're good to go in. So the next pair in they'll be the guys who bring in the lazy shot and set
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it all up and that will obviously you know what we all use to do our deco. Our tags have already been put on the lazy
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shot on the boat. And if you want to know a bit more about how that system works, you should definitely watch my
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Lazy Shot video and there'll be I'll put a link in the in the in the description so you can see how that works.
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Meanwhile, I'm I'm kind of fighting with my video lights cuz I've got my uh I've got the Insta 360 there and I'm going to
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be using that to take some uh some video of what we find. And here it is. We're on to the Insta
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360. That's the Conning tower. You can see the shot line is off to the right hand side here. So the M1 is lying with
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the port side down. So we are on the port side at the moment just looking after. So this area that we're looking
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at here, this is where the gun mount is or was rather. And you can see here this
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circular thing was a effectively a traverse for it. If you look in there, you'll see there are loads of of massive
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roller bearings in there. You also see it. It shows up much better later on that this is distorted. And the reason
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it's distorted is cuz over here on the seabed where I'm about to go is the the mount for the gun. So at some point the
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the mount for the gun has has fallen off the side of the wreck and in doing so is
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distorted the part of the submarine, the main submarine on which it was. Now this
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is the uh this is the gun mount here. And it I'll be honest, it was really
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confusing when I first saw it because I was expecting a barrel. You know, it's a gun mount. There's got to be a gun. Guns
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have barrels. And the only thing I can find that looks anything at all like a barrel is this thing in front of me
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here. But it's not really a barrel. It certainly doesn't look like the barrel of a 12-in gun. So, the big question is
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where is the gun? You know, there's this 50 ton thing. Uh, you know, it's got to be here somewhere. If you have a look in
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front of me, you can see the the circular bit of the mount, you know, that fits on the other bit of the mount
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that we've just seen up on the wreck. You can see the spigot that fits into that hole. What you can't see is the
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actual gun. Actually, you can see the gun. I just haven't really got it in my
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head where it is and where the where it actually is. It's really obvious when I've started to think about it. If you
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have a look at the very bottom of this video, you can see something in the sand.
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And what's in the sand is the only bit of the gun barrel that actually is above the sand. So, took me ages to clock
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this. In fact, I didn't really clock, in fact, I didn't clock it until I was out of the water. It was only when I reviewed my video footage and I talked
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it through with Rick and we looked at some of Rick's photos that it became clear it clear to me. So, this is the
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gun mount. This is the gun. The vast majority of it is underneath the uh
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underneath the sand. And if you recall the multi-beam image earlier on, you can see that sand has piled up next to the
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wreck. So quite a lot of the bottom of the wreck is in it. And this thing here is is a lot of this is under the sand.
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So this is the bottom of the gun mount. The gun was was able to traverse I think
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up to plus or minus 15° either way. And it did that with a kind of gear system
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that that buted up against the the back of the conning tower. And this thing I'm looking up here, this sort of slightly
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circular thing uh that goes above me here. This is part of the mechanism for turning the gun. At the moment, I'm not
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really interested in that cuz I've just spotted there's a load of crayfish. There's kind of family of crayfish in here. So, I'm kind of doing my my
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wildlife photography bit. Um, you can see there, you never get one crayfish. You always get about uh six or seven of
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them. That's because they're quite social things. So, so this uh mount, I guess it looks a bit like a wedge of
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cheese. So, what we're looking at is the the kind of the semi-ircular bit of the
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wedge of cheese. And that is the bit that that allowed the front element, which is where the spigot is, which is
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where the circular mount, that allowed it to, you know, traverse a little bit.
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I'm aware that my cheese metaphor is is not particularly great. I I'll come back
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to that in in a bit because what I've done here is I've gone around the gun mount up against the submarine. And you
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can probably see here there's a port hole uh there with a with a kind of bronze deadlight. This is part of the
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conning tower that has fallen off the side of the submarine and is next to next to the gun mount. So the gun mount
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is off to the the left there. This is the the conning tower. Uh there's the or
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part of the conning tower that's kind of fallen off the wreck. There was the shot. You can see there's something else kind of interesting in there. Might be
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another conning tower. Might be some sort of uh instrument. And the conning tower of the M1 had far more instruments
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than you would expect in a normal submarine. And the reason for that was because the gun was fired remotely from
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within the conning tower. It's not immediately obvious from this picture, but the whole gun would be submerged. So
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the area where the breach was was not watertight. This was a real surprise to me when I started researching it, but
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actually when you think about it, it makes quite a lot of sense. Most submarines of this era didn't have their
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guns um within the submarines. So they would routinely submerge the guns and they were used to, you know,
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waterproofing guns and making sure they they could still work when they uh when they came back up again. Of course, it
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would also have been really difficult to actually waterproof that area in which the gun was enclosed. The gun, as we've
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already talked about, traverses plus or - 15° and it also goes up and down in
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elevation there. I think up to um another 30°, maybe 40° elevation. So
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trying to figure out how you waterproof that would be would be a nightmare. So they they just didn't bother. They
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accepted that the the brereech and the barrel and the whole lot of it was going to be submerged in water. So therefore
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they had a means of remotely opening the the end of the muzzle and they also had
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a a way of remotely firing the um the gun and that was done from within the conning tower which of course was
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pressurized. Now, I don't know if for certain that this is the way it was done, but if you have a look on this bit
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of video in the left hand side there, you can actually see there's a port hole that kind of opens uh downwards, and
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that in front of it is the remains of the the kind of the casemate that had
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the gun in. So, I kind of think maybe that that port hole there that's in the front of the screen, that was how they
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actually uh fired the gun. There's also some speaking tubes you probably just seen there to the to the left as well
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that you know all these things must have played a part in in something. Now, one
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of the things with this video is I spend an awful lot of time in and around the conning tower and the gun mounts. As you
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can see at the moment, one of the things I found is uh just some kind of interesting bit of machinery down there.
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I don't know whether that's anything to do with the gun, whether that's anything to do with the diving equipment, but it's certainly it's certainly
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interesting. And the reason I spend so much time in and around the conning tower is because I'm trying to figure
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out in my own head what is what is going on here. There's another speaking tube. You can see it's collapsed over. So it's
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come down from the conning towers the wrong way up. There's a there's a diver there. I think he's probably looking in there. There's a there's a massive crab.
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So I suspect that diver is going to go and help himself to a bit of crab and that will sort him out for the dinner.
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But there that that there is with the rope on it. That is the the mount. That is my wedge of cheese with my rubbish
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analogy. Um the the gun um the circular bit is to the right. To the left is the
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the bit that that is used for the traverse. And then what I'm looking at here is the underneath of the gun mount.
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You can see there the edge of the circle. You can see the spigot. So So the gun is all to the right hand side of
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us here underneath the seabed. I'm absolutely convinced that is where it is. But unfortunately
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at the on on the dive I'm you know what I'm doing why I'm spending so much time here is I'm trying to figure this out
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and and I wish I could go back to myself and say look you idiot just go and waft some of the sand um away from this thing
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that I'm concentrating on here. The gun is probably about a meter to the left of it in the uh in the seabed. I just wish
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I could tell myself. And you can just see the edge of it there. I just uh in the left of the screen where the fish
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are, you know, and I just wish I could go back to myself and say, "Look, there you go. It's really obvious now that you
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know where it is. There it is. You can see it in the in the left of the screen." Now, the other thing I'm having at the moment is is video light issues.
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Um I've gone back to using some of my old older ones. And as you can see there, the one on the left hand side is
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is not playing. It's going bright then dim, which is which is just really irritating because obviously I want to get some decent quality video footage
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for you. So yeah, directly in front of me here, this this circular bit here, that is
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what or semic-ircular bit, that is what the gun is mounted on. So the gun is directly underneath me. Underneath me
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here, this is the this is me swimming sort of effectively along where the gun
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would be. It's all underneath the sand here. I'm convinced there's probably a breach in and around here somewhere. And
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uh I just want to go back to to how the submarine was used because it is really interesting. What I'm going to do is I'm
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going to stick my head in here and and try and see something. It's possible that what I'm seeing there is that
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obviously another divers just come along and destroyed the viz, which is very good of them. Um I don't really get
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anything useful from looking inside here. So the way the gun was fired, so
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they they they couldn't reload it underwater, obviously. They had to reload it on the surface. So they the
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the typical kind of MMO for them was to was to have it loaded. They would uh
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what they called dip and scoot. So they would they would come up when they were near a target. They would fire their
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single round, I guess, hope they would hit it, and then they would submerge very very quickly. And the the one of
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the great things about having a 50 ton uh gun on it was that this did supposedly dive very very quickly. So
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that was an easy thing for them to do. But then what they would have to do is go somewhere safe where they could surface and then reload the gun and then
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come back and have another go. I mean fortunately they also had some torpedoes. And you might have seen one of the earlier pictures there was a um a
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rear gun as well. A small rear rear gun or smaller rear gun. Now what you can also see there is you can see that brass
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uh brass wheel with a with a brass handle on it there. That is I'm pretty certain part of the traverse mechanism.
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So, this bit that I'm looking at there, that is how you traversed the gun, how you moved it moved it around. What I'm
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trying to do is um is look underneath um into the kind of the gun mount area. And
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you can see I can see there's something circular there. I think that's the the the thing that's sticking out of the
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front. I think the bit that I'm looking at to the right here, I think that's connected to that. And I'm pretty
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certain it's got to be part of the uh recoil system or the recuperator or or
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something like that. But but clearly, you know, a large chunk of that is buried. And the the breach I'm pretty
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certain is to the right of where I'm looking at. So I'm inside the gun mount.
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I'm looking forward, but I'm I'm too far I'm too far down, and the sand is in the
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way of me seeing what I really want to see. What I'm currently doing at the moment is I'm trying to get my torch out. So, at the moment, I'm only on
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video lights. I'm going to try and get the torch and shine it in there and see if that kind of reveals anything a bit
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more. Uh, spoiler alert, it won't do. So, so what I'm looking at here is to my to my left is the base of the cheese,
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the base of the mount. To the right is the recuperator. Further to the right of that, underneath the sand, would be I'm
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fairly certain where the the brereech and uh where the gun is. So, apologies
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uh if I'm I'm kind of laboring this point cuz it was once I figured this out, it was like a super revelation to me and I guess what you know like
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everybody I just want to share my super revelation with you guys as well so that
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it's um it's really difficult. I know when you look at these videos trying to figure out what is going on especially
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um you don't get any of the peripheral vision, you don't get any of the kind of wider sense and at the moment all you're doing is looking at a load of fishing
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net. So rather than look at some fishing net, let's have a look at one of Rick's pictures instead. And that one, I think,
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is probably the best one that shows the wedge of cheese. So you can see the circle where I am, that's the the end
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where the the gun would have pivoted on. And the end nearest um the camera, that
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is where the uh gears would be in order to kind of rotate the gun. So that was
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the handle that I saw earlier on. That would that is where that is. So, I'm back at the end of the the wedge of
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cheese here. The bit that that where you control the rotation. The handle is down at the bottom there. That's where all
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those crayfish are. You can see this is this is the mount. And there's a load more of this underneath the seabed. I'm
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absolutely certain. So, I'm on top of the gun mount here. I'm looking forward.
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The gun is somewhere there underneath the sand. As I've said about a million times already, there's a crayfish. There's a shot line. And what I'm going
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to do in a moment is I'm going to go to the back of the mount. And when I go to the back of the mount and look over the
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far side of it, so the direction that dive is coming from, you're going to see a load of teeth. And those teeth are the
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things that controlled the traverse of the of the gun. You can just start to see the teeth coming coming in there. So
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So just kind of this side of the fish. There they go. You can see them the the row of teeth going all the way down. And
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when I go up on the submarine in in a minute, you will see the matching um you know where those teeth interfaced
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interfaced against. So that was how the the gun was traversed. You can really see the kind of the circle or the you
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know the element of a circle there. And that's obviously how the the whole thing
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that's the the end of the wedge of cheese. So, I know I've done this I've done this to death, but I I I was I'm
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really pleased that I finally figured it out because on the dive, I was trying to figure out where is the gun, you know,
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what is this thing that I'm seeing down here? I wondered about the lack of a pressure hull. Well, I know the reason
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there's no pressure hull around the gun is because it wasn't pressurized. So, it only had thin metal casing, and that's
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obviously long gone. It's uh we don't didn't know where the gun was. And now we know where the gun is. It's
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underneath the sand. So, it all completely makes sense. What I've done here though is I've come back up on the
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wreck. And if you have a look in front of me, this is where the the circular bit would have sat in. We saw that right
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at the beginning of the the Insta footage. And you can see there. So, the spigot would have gone in in that hole.
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And you can see all the bearings and everything that would would have allowed it to traverse. And I look in there, you
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know, I actually wonder if that goes into the submarine. It can't do because otherwise the the submarine would have flooded, but it does seem that way. that
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slot there um I guess must be where the uh thing that I thought was the gun
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initially, you know, does that fit in there? I don't know. How would that fit in with it traversing? Once again, that
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that doesn't necessarily make sense. But what you can see here is is that distortion that I talked about. So, you
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can also see the roll of bearings on the right. So, the the distortion when the the mount came out, you can see it's
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it's actually, you know, physically moved that that bit of it. As I as I swim back here towards the coning tower,
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towards the stern, you can see there's this casing off to my left hand side. And then what you can see up here or
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you're going to see in a minute is is where the wedge of um the end of the wedge of cheese would sit just up where
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I'm where I'm kind of heading here. And you can see beyond that is the conning tower, which would obviously be part of
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the the pressurized system. And obviously that's the bit from within which the gun would be fired. There's
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all sorts of bits of machinery you can see there. And as I've already mentioned, this whole area is absolutely
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festoned with with fishing nets, kind of old stuff as you can see there, but there's also a whole load more modern
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stuff as well. And and later on I uh I get kind of stuck in it. What you can also see here is you can probably see
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there's a light up there that this kind of glass thing you can see just in front
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of me. It's also worth making the point, of course, that this whole area of the wreck is quite badly battered. So the
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gun is off. There's clearly a big dink in the side of the conning tower. Now, I don't actually go on this dive anywhere
25:12
other than the conning tower. So, I don't go to the the stern. I don't go to the bow. Other members of the team went
25:19
to both and report that they're all completely intact. And the bow is particularly uh lovely. It's kind of
25:25
comes to a really really sharp point. the the the reason I'm making uh the
25:30
reason I'm talking about that is because what there is after the conning tower on the starboard side is a big dent. And
25:37
I've already shown you a picture of that. And there's also all this damage here where I am now. So it's almost as
25:44
if the submarine has been hit twice. Once after the conning tower and once
25:50
near the conning tower near the gun. That's what's done all this damage. That's what's maybe knocked the gun out.
25:56
And you would kind of go, well, you know what happened there? But rather interestingly, the reports from the VAR,
26:03
the Swedish submarine that sunk it, report that they did in fact hear or feel two bangs. So it might be that what
26:11
we we seeing is exactly that, two sets of damage. One sets of damage by the conning tower, one that is f further
26:18
aft. Now I don't know the mechanism by which that would happen. Perhaps the first one, you know, hit the submarine,
26:24
pushed it underwater. It was then sufficiently buoyant that it came back up again and got hit a second time.
26:30
That's about all that I can uh all that I can think of. What I'm doing now is this is me passing
26:37
on the starboard side of the conning tower. I'm going uh to the aft here. And
26:42
there you go. You can see in front of me there, you can see a bit of fishing line. And not really surprised when you've seen I mean I'm sure you've seen
26:48
tons and tons of fish around here. You can also see that the conning tower has got large amounts of brass as well. So
26:54
or or bronze perhaps. So it's the reason why it's not quite as furry as you tend
27:00
to get when you have steel or iron uh structure. But inside there there's
27:06
there's a load of stuff. There's a load of pipes. So often at the stern of of coning towers, you would have uh air
27:11
intakes or exhausts from diesel engines or all those kind of things. And I'm pretty certain that is what I'm looking
27:18
at there. It's also worth mentioning that the HMSM1 is a protected site, so
27:26
you can dive it, but you can't uh take anything off it. And obviously, you can't interfere it. You can't go inside
27:31
it or anything like that. So, you've probably seen that I've dropped my camera. And the the reason I've dropped
27:36
my camera, and this happened quite a lot on this dive, is that I've been snagged in some sort of fishing line. And uh
27:44
yeah, it happened a load. Every time it happened, I would have to get my knife out. I'd have to cut myself free. And
27:50
it's But you've seen that the wreck is absolutely fested with this stuff. But it looks as though I've managed to sort
27:56
it out. I've picked up my camera again and I'm taking loads of video of kind of small bits of uh bits of the wreck. And
28:03
actually, I've I've dropped down onto the the port side again. So, this is the side with gun mount. Um you can see
28:09
there's all sorts of brass bits and pieces hanging off the wreck. And interesting enough, we we find all sorts
28:16
of bits and pieces. We find uh the helm. Later on, you'll see there's a trigger uh some sort of trigger mechanism.
28:21
Clearly, there's all sorts of brass bits and pieces inside here. There's that light and very unusual to see kind of
28:28
things like that on on a wreck and it's because this is protected. Uh I'm pretty certain that um those things are still
28:35
uh down there, although of course they will eventually fall into the seabed. Um less likely on a submarine because
28:41
obviously they're much more substantial than normal wrecks. But but those, you know, the poor holes and stuff we've
28:47
seen and um some of the other loose stuff will will eventually vanish. So, I'm back up and in fact, you can
28:52
probably see um I'm taking some video of the casing there. There's that port hole I mentioned earlier on that would be
28:58
used for the firing. And then up here is the uh this is the periscope. And there
29:05
was a suggestion I read somewhere that that one of the periscopes was used for firing the gun. So, this is the forward
29:11
periscope. So maybe this was the the gunfiring periscope. It was used in conjunction with that that port hole
29:17
that's just in front of it. What you can also see, and I'm going to go around to it in a minute, is uh is the helm. So
29:23
this is the the kind of bridge area of the submarine. The helm is in front of me. Yeah, you can see there's a load more um fishing net and and all that
29:30
kind of stuff there. This is the the helm. You can just see it. That thing that's standing up there, I think would
29:37
have had a periscope in it at some point. Um, I don't know where the periscope is, but to the left hand side, you can see the classic boss of a helm.
29:44
I assume it would have been wood at some point. That's that's clearly long gone. I guess one of the interesting things
29:51
about these uh the M-class submarines is that they the coning towers are much bigger and
29:57
much wider than they are on normal submarines. That's the boss of the the helm in front of me. Um, in case you you
30:03
don't recognize it. Obviously, it's covered in fishing nets. um generations of fishing nets and even some really
30:09
modern stuff that kind of pinky uh whatever color it is fishing line. I know lots of fishermen watch my videos.
30:16
Um I don't know if they're trying to kind of get some hints or whatever, but one of the things I would say guys is uh
30:22
you know sometimes you make it really difficult for us. This is the the the rear of the conning tower. There's
30:27
another periscope there. You can probably see it's bent. Um I don't know whether that was during the collision,
30:33
whether that was like some of the fishing gear that got snagged on it. Who knows? You can al see there's a load of uh a couple of other divers down there.
30:40
They're obviously having a good look around. That's the the stern of the oh, sorry, the aft end of the conning tower.
30:46
I'm I'm staying up here to, you know, just having a good look around. And the reason I'm having good look around is cuz that allows you to spot things. And
30:52
what you can probably see and that I've just seen it is that there is an open hatch there. And this is uh one of the
31:00
things that Inis McCartney and other people reported is that there is a an
31:06
open hatch. Now I'm trying to use the bookmark feature on the uh on the Insta and I'm failing miserably. What I
31:12
actually do is stop the camera recording. So I've switched back to my parallel lens. You can see there I've
31:18
I've completely failed to notice that the the Insta has uh has stopped working. So, I'm I'm videoing inside the
31:24
hatch without actually recording anything, which is uh yeah, there you go. That's uh that's foolishness on my
31:31
part. But um I can also see in there and there's not much in there other than
31:36
silk, which is really disappointing. Not cuz you kind of you'd hope to see the control room or something like that.
31:43
But the I guess the interesting thing is about the hatch is about it being open
31:48
and clearly that's not being opened by the salvagers in 1967. I can't imagine
31:54
Inis or anybody after um 2000s would have opened it up. So almost certainly
32:00
that is opened by the people at the time when the M1 was uh was sunk. And it does
32:07
make you wonder therefore did some people um try to get out? Did some people actually get out? Um, if they got
32:14
out, you know, what happened to them? Clearly, none of them were ever seen again. So, nobody nobody's washed
32:19
ashore. No, nothing was picked up by the vidar. So, it's a bit of a mystery what
32:25
happened. Did some people get out? They What happened to them? This was
32:31
this was in November when it was uh when it was hit by the vidar. So, that's a pretty miserable time to be at the
32:37
surface. Drowning is also pretty miserable. So, I don't think there's any of those good ways to die. But anyway,
32:44
on that morbid thought, you can see lots of other divers back at the conning tower. That one down there has found a a
32:51
shovel, which is which is really odd odd thing to find on the outside of a
32:56
submarine. Is it has somebody taken a shovel down there? I don't know. Why would you have one on a on a submarine?
33:02
I've got no idea at all. But anyway, it's uh it's still down there. So, if anybody wants submarine, there it is.
33:08
Now, the selfie stick is clearly not playing vo. You can see that's managed to wrap itself around some fishing line and and and pull itself out. I normally
33:15
have it secured to my right shoulder, but but kind of all not folded in, but you know, telescoped in. Um, clearly
33:23
it's been caught and it's been it's been pulled out. And I guess I do have quite a lot of stuff dangling on me and
33:28
therefore this is the sort of thing that can happen particularly on wrecks like this. I can hear lots of people already
33:34
telling me I should streamline my gear and and all that kind of stuff. But um there you go. You can see it's not a
33:39
problem. I sorted it all out. I've freed myself. Although I am going to now push that back in again and the selfie stick
33:46
will uh return to its normal its normal place. Um the the other interesting thing is
33:53
you can see Insta's still not on. Still haven't realized. But I'm at the end of my dive anyway pretty much. So, uh, as I
34:00
head back to the shot, I just thought I'd share some more of Rick's photos. This stunning one here is the bow.
34:06
There's the bow again. You can see it's incredible. It sits, um, almost off the bottom, but obviously it's not. It's
34:12
just the way it's uh, it's way it's lying. Um, here you go. If you for those of you like your props, there's a a
34:17
beautiful prop shot. Most of the props are heavily buried, I think, but that one at least got a lot of fish around
34:22
it. And, uh, yeah, here I am back at the shot. You can see there taking off my strobes. pretty normal SOP for for any
34:30
who's watched any of my other dives. And you see once again soon as the light goes completely pitch black, but a few
34:35
other people's strobes above me there. And it's just going to be a case of ascending up, bringing the dive to a
34:42
close. But before I do that, you can see I'm just having a look back down on the wreck. See some of the other divers, see
34:47
the top of the conning tower there. Makes it really obvious how dark it was on this dive. And and that was those
34:53
gray clouds and the kind of overcast conditions. There's also a bit of a layer in the water at about 20 m which
34:59
will be blocking a lot of the light as well. So hopefully I'm planning on going back and doing the M1. One of the things
35:06
I'd really like to do is put a um a white enson on there. This is the 100th
35:12
anniversary 2025 100th anniversary of the sinking and 62 people lost their
35:17
lives when it vanished in 1925. So that's the sort of thing I don't think uh should be forgotten especially as
35:24
many of those people on board must have been veterans of the first world war. They must have um you know survived some
35:31
really dangerous times. Submarines were were were particularly were bad in peace time. They were even worse in wartime.
35:37
So you know we should it would be nice to ensure that they aren't uh aren't forgotten. But as you see I'm I'm coming
35:43
up a bit here and you see things are getting a bit shallower. And as they get shallower they also get lighter. And I
35:50
reckon this is a good time now for me to show you the uh the deco profile. I know
35:55
lots of people enjoy that. And here it is. Uh I'd like to say it's a kind of pretty standard profile for a 74 m dive,
36:02
but actually you can see it's not necessarily that square. There is a bit of multi-leveling down the bottom there as I come up at the conning tower on the
36:08
end. And then as you can see I've got I leave bottom with, you know, just under two hours of deco and that that all goes
36:16
pretty well. The one thing with this dive is I I come up a bit late. Uh normally we have a 2 and 1 half hour
36:22
limit, runtime limit on on Indepie, but I come over about 2 hour 40 minutes. So uh I'm in trouble when we'll get on the
36:28
boat. For those of you wondering why I'm using a uh DSMBB, this is something that
36:34
we do uh in conjunction occasionally with the lazy shot system. So the lazy shot is actually just in front of me. I
36:40
I've just put up and the trapeze is just in front of me. What I've done is I've just used a delayed SMB. There was quite a lot of divers on the boat, so I put up
36:47
a delayed SMB next to the lazy shot. And it just meant there was one less person on the trapze. And also, frankly, when
36:53
it's quite lumpy sea conditions, it's quite nice having a a delayed SMB to do your deco on. They're just a bit less
37:00
vicious than trapezes, which uh which go up and down quite badly. And there you
37:05
go. You can see just coming to the surface now. And you get a bit of a feel for what the conditions are like. It's,
37:12
you know, it's not unworkable. It's just a bit lumpy. But the other thing with this is cuz I'm
37:19
uh I'm a bit I'm a bit late. I'm the the last diver in the water as well. So, everyone else is sat on the boat um kind
37:25
of slightly cursing me. Not the easiest thing in the world using the selfie stick in these conditions. But, um I
37:32
thought I'd try and get a bit of a footage of what it's like trying to get out of the water, trying to get on the lift when it's like this. Uh
37:38
unfortunately, didn't come out particularly brilliantly. So, hey, you've got you've got what you've got, and I gave up on it at this point. There
37:45
you go. That's me on the back of the boat on the way back. You can see still pretty lumpy, but uh great great feeling
37:53
to have achieved a dive that I've not not done before. And there you go. Gets a bit of a feel for what UK diving is
38:00
like. It's absolute uh absolute best. Uh snot, blood, guts, the whole thing.
38:06
Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the video. As always, please leave us a like, comment, and uh I will look forward to
38:11
seeing you on the next one.

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